12 Awesome Spanish Conjugation Games to Play in Your Classroom
Stop struggling to try to teach your students how to conjugate verbs, play Spanish conjugation games in your classroom and they will learn by themselves!
Playing games is one of the best ways to learn, and when it comes to something so dry and unalluring as verb conjugations, playing games may be the best way to go.
Your students don’t want you to give them a verb conjugation set to memorize and then suffer through a test that will ask each one of those dreaded conjugations. They want to have fun in the classroom, to compete and win. Use that competitive edge to your advantage and play Spanish conjugation games in the classroom with them.
Keep reading to learn about the benefits of playing games for educational purposes and 12 awesome Spanish conjugation games to play with your students starting today!
How to Introduce Spanish Conjugation Games Into Your Classroom
The benefits of playing games with educational purposes are well-supported by different research and nowadays games are recognized as an important tool for education. This opens up a whole lot of opportunities for Spanish teachers who want to enrich their classes with exciting resources for their students.
Whether you want to introduce Spanish grammar games or Spanish card games, the opportunities to use games to learn Spanish are varied and diverse. But, what if we take Spanish grammar games one step further and focus only on Spanish conjugation games to help your students master their verbs?
Let’s do just that.
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12 Super Fun and Useful Spanish Conjugation Games
The conjugation of Spanish verbs and specifically of irregular verbs, is one of the hardest to master Spanish grammar concepts. And with good reason, when confronted with the amount of different conjugations Spanish verbs require, Spanish students tend to freak out.
However, it doesn’t have to be like that. Verbs in Spanish should be interesting and learning to conjugate them can be fun too. Practice Spanish conjugation games with your students and they will embrace learning verbs in your classroom.
1. ¡Basta!
In English, you know this classic game as “Stop!” One person says a letter and everybody else has to come up with an animal, plant or flower, country or city, and object that starts with that letter. The person that finishes first shouts ¡Basta! and the others have to stop writing. Each correct word gives you 100 points.
Usually, ¡Basta! Is used as an excellent Spanish vocabulary game. However, it’s quite easy to add a column for verbs. Another option is to make the game exclusively about verbs and the columns will be a combination of tenses and persons (i.e. present-yo, past-tú).
2. Bingo
I play Bingo with my Spanish students about pretty much everything. You can use it to practice new vocabulary or as one more of your Spanish conjugation games. Create your Bingo cards with the verbs and conjugations you’re studying in your classroom and you’ll read the description of the verb (i.e. ser-presente-primera persona singular). This way, your students will have to know the conjugations to win the game!
3. Tic-Tac-Toe
I like this one because it’s so easy to play and several students can play at the same time different Tic-Tac-Toe games. Take a generic Tic-Tac-Toe board or draw one in the board, and write verbs and pronouns in each square. If a student wants to claim a block, they will have to conjugate the verb in a given tense before. Easy to play, great for feeding the competitive spirit and motivating your students
4. Memory
Memory is another classic game that fits perfectly to teach Spanish in the classroom. Write in one card the conjugated verb and in its pair write the conjugation description. It works exactly like with the Bingo, unless your students know the conjugation, they won’t be able to win the game.
A good thing about this game is that you can generate your memory game online (free but have to create an account) or even play it online if that’s your preference.
5. Game Board / Piedra, Papel o Tijeras
If you can’t find any more Spanish conjugation games you can also create your own game board. Draw a path with different slots, each slot will include a person and verb. Students will advance 1 space if they win with piedra, 2 slots if they win with tijeras, and 3 slots if they win with papel. If they don’t know the conjugation, they go back to their previous spot.
Download this printable and start playing today!
6. Relay
This is the best example of how you can play Spanish verb conjugation games in the classroom. Split your classroom into two groups and put two small baskets next to the board filled with small pieces of paper. In one basket there would be verbs and in the other pronouns. When you say “go” two one member of each team runs to the board, picks a piece of paper from each basket and writes the right conjugation on the board. The student that got it right first earns a point for the team.
If you want to make it more difficult, vary the tenses and ask students to write full sentences on the board.
7. Rap the Verb
Ok, this is not exactly a game, but it’s still a fun way to learn verbs that I just find quite interesting and wanted to include here. Take a look at this video and imagine how much fun you could have with your students creating something like this for a specific verb or group of verbs.
Ask them to rap the -ar verbs conjugation rules, or the conjugation set of a specific verb. They can upload it to YouTube or create a TikTok and share it with the rest of the group. The most creative rap video wins the competition. Your students will have a lot of fun and learn their verbs without even noticing they’re learning.
8. Quizlet
This platform is always useful to teach new subjects as it gives you a variety of different tools to work with. Each lesson includes two different games: “Match” and “Gravity.” Study the lesson with your students in the classroom and then ask them to play those Spanish conjugation games as homework. That’s going to be the first time they enjoy doing their homework!
9. Crossword
This is one of the best Spanish conjugation games free online. Part of the Conjuguemos platform, this interactive online crossword is quite easy to play and very well-designed. You can choose the tense you want to practice and the site gives you pronouns and verbs. All your student has to do is write the right conjugation and fill the crossword.
You can play it without creating an account, but to open all the games and features it’s recommended to create a free account.
10. Wordsearch
Also part of the Conjuguemos website, which offers some of the very best Spanish conjugation games online, this Wordsearch is also very intuitive and easy to use. The interface is quite friendly and all your students have to do is find the right conjugation according to the given verbs.
11. Spanish Uno
Although a bit outdated in its design, Spanish Uno is still a useful tool to practice Spanish conjugations. All you have to do is to choose the tense and type of verbs you want to practice. You can select a specific ending of verbs or all types, and how common are the verbs you want to play with. You can also simply choose a verb and the system will ask you about that specific verb in all tenses and subject pronouns.
12. Digital Dialects
One more of the online Spanish conjugation games, Digital Dialects is a platform that offers games for many different topics. You have two different games for verbs, and in both of them your students can practice their verb conjugations and have fun while playing online.
Keep Calm and Play Spanish Conjugation Games!
Learning Spanish is a process that involves many different pieces. Learning to conjugate verbs is one of the most important ones and you can make this process easier and funnier by playing games in the classroom with them. When your students are having fun, they put in their best effort. Ask them to play these Spanish conjugation games with you and you’ll see how their competitive spirit transforms usually passive students, into the most willing learners!
Remember that when children are young, they have an outstanding ability to pronounce sounds that are foreign and unfamiliar. The earlier your students start learning Spanish, the easier it will be for them to advance in their language learning process.
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